A. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to gardening tools and in particular to a garden tool device comprising an elongated body having a bend, a handle, a forearm receptacle at one end of the elongated body, and a garden tool securing mechanism at the opposite end of the elongated body for receiving the handle of a garden tool and for applying optimum leverage to the working head of the gardening tool with minimum fatigue for the user, by allowing not just the hand and wrist but the whole arm and upper body to work the gardening tool.
B. Prior Art
Currently, small hand-held gardening tools such as trowels, rakes and hoes are generally one-piece tools having a short body, the body either connected at one end to the desired tool and at the other end to a short handle, or being one contiguous piece with the tool and providing a handle opposite the tool. A hand-held gardening tool is useful for precise and accurate weeding, cultivating, planting and digging in a small enclosed or isolated area. Due to the size of the gardening tool, a gardener using a hand-held tool can work on a small enclosed plot for plants and bulbs or an area within a garden surrounded by plants with a minimum of disruption or damage to the surrounding plants. A hand-held tool is typically ideal when a larger gardening implement might otherwise be impractical to use. Similarly, the hand-held tool is generally preferred over larger gardening tools because the hand-held tool requires the use of only one hand, takes up minimum space and is easily stored, it's the gardener's choice. The drawbacks, however, to working with a hand-held gardening tool are that the user needs to bend over, kneel or sit down in order to get close enough to the ground to effectively garden. This bending motion causes the joints and muscles of the legs and back to quickly tire. Similarly, the short shaft of such a hand-held tool causes the hand, and especially the wrist and arm, to quickly fatigue from the continuous digging motion and amount of pressure required to be placed on the shaft of the tool by the user's hand, wrist and arm when utilizing the tool to dig in a garden.
In an effort to solve the problem of fatigue associated with applying sufficient hand and arm pressure to the gardening tool to penetrate the soil, gardening tools with elongated shafts of varying lengths to provide additional leverage have been introduced. Despite the redesigning of these gardening tools, users still encounter the problem of a quick rate of fatigue in the joints and insides of the hand, wrist and forearm because the size and construction of the prior hand-held tools prevented leveraging force from the rest of the body to be optimally applied to the tool during gardening. Present garden tools require unnatural hand/wrist alignment during use.
Additionally, as the length of the elongated shaft increases, a user needs to use both hands in order to gain enough leverage to garden effectively. Thus, while the elongated shafts decrease the amount of back and leg fatigue, the fatigue of the hands, wrists and arms increase by requiring the user to use both hands. Requiring the use of both hands defeats the purpose of a hand-held gardening tool, namely to use only one hand to garden while allowing the free hand to position bulbs or other plants. Furthermore, the increased distance from the target area caused by the length of the handle decreases accuracy and precision in gardening.
Similarly, gardening tools with an additional handle have been introduced to overcome the fatigue of the hand, wrist and forearm associated with traditional hand-held tools. Once again, even though the additional handle provided some increased leverage, these tools require the use of both hands and thus defeated the desired purpose of a hand-held tool.
Accordingly, the present invention is designed to provide a gardening tool that requires the use of only one hand to use, but reduces the amount of fatigue to the back, legs, hand, wrist and arm normally associated with the use of a hand-held gardening tool by bridging the weak wrist area and allowing the hand muscles to work directly with the forearm muscles to which they are attached.